Habitat for Humanity offers a helping hand all the way home

Left: Jack Alcorn levels out the scaffolding on one of the Habitat Terrace houses, for which applications will open in the summer.

Photo: Brandon Chew / Brandon Chew / The Chronicle

Evan Anderson was cleaning the clutter off his desk when he picked up the pamphlets urging families to apply for an affordable home through Habitat for Humanity.

Months earlier, the private school principal had given the flyers out to his students’ parents, many low-income, but never thought to look at one himself. He was, after all, a college-educated educator.

But just before tossing the pamphlet in the recycle bin, he glanced at it and realized he was eligible. Habitat for Humanity has been building homes for low-income first-time home buyers since 1979, but contrary to popular perception, they aren’t all built in rural countrysides for low-income workers.

The organization’s army of volunteers is building a lot of homes in the Bay Area, some for professionals in white-collar careers who nonetheless make about half the region’s median income. They are teachers, accountants, pharmacy technicians, financial analysts and even private school principals.

For Anderson, who moved his family into their Menlo Park Habitat home in 2013, it was a life-changer. They had been renting a mold-ridden house at double the cost of their current mortgage.

3of7Fernando Camacho works on one of the 28 housing units soon to be known as Habitat Terrace in San Francisco’s Oceanview neighborhood.Photo: Brandon Chew / Brandon Chew / The Chronicle

4of7A worker walked by the street called Habitat Terrace that was produced for the project in San Francisco, Calif. Tuesday June 2, 2015. Habitat for Humanity has moved past rural homes in Georgia and is now building condos in San Francisco, Calif. and the Bay Area.Photo: Brant Ward / The Chronicle

5of7Liena, a volunteer worker on the project, carried some siding Tuesday June 2, 2015 in San Francisco, Calif. Habitat for Humanity has moved past rural homes in Georgia and is now building condos in San Francisco, Calif. and the Bay Area.Photo: Brant Ward / The Chronicle

6of7A tool box sits in the middle of the construction site of Habitat Terrace with equipment for volunteers to use in San Francisco, California, on Tuesday, June 2, 2015.Photo: Brandon Chew / The Chronicle

7of7Gennis Reyes, 49, sits down for dinner at home with his family in Daily City, California, on Wednesday, June 3, 2015.Photo: Brandon Chew / The Chronicle

He had considered a career switch back to biotech, where he could make more money. That’s when he saw the flyer, applied to Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco, got his own home and recommitted himself to helping kids learn.

“It’s a force multiplier,” he said of the Habitat housing model. “It gave me the ability to continue in education.”

Habitat for Humanity buys or receives donated land or houses and then, using often donated or discounted materials, volunteers upgrade them — with former President Jimmy Carter among the most famous.

Eligible families — those with half the area’s median income and a good credit score — are required to pitch in 500 hours of labor, or 300 for single parents. And then they buy the property, with no down payment required and at a cost significantly below the market rate, financed by Habitat at zero percent interest.

If they ever decide to sell, they have to sell back to Habitat for Humanity, although they get to keep the money and improvements they’ve put into it, plus about 3 percent compounded annually.

While the international organization has been around for nearly 40 years, Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco started in 1989. Back then, the nonprofit’s top leaders questioned the idea of Habitat homes in San Francisco and surrounding cities. It couldn’t work, they said. The area was too dense, too expensive.

They started in East Palo Alto — looking for dilapidated homes, foreclosures and small plots of land to build up — and now, 26 years later, Habitat homes dot the region, with houses in Redwood City and Novato, condos in Daly City, and single-family homes in San Francisco.

Building boom

Another three large developments are in the works, including 28 homes in San Francisco, another 10 in Novato and 20 units in a six-story building in downtown Redwood City. And down the road, Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco will take on 200 of the 800 units planned in India Basin.

In San Francisco’s Oceanview, 17 of the 28 three-story homes are nearly done. The Habitat Terrace homes, built along a private road and spaced 4 inches apart, look very much like San Francisco.

“We build to the neighborhood specificity,” said Kristine Leja, chief development officer of Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco. “We don’t want them to stand out as Habitat homes.”

The Bay Area branch of Habitat bought the property from a private seller at the bottom of the housing market. It will cost the equivalent of $425,000 each to build, but actual costs will be a lot less, given material donations and volunteer labor. Government subsidies and donations will offset the cost even more to buyers.

All told, each family will pay somewhere around $225,000 to $250,000 — plus 500 hours of labor to help finish the homes — although the final price tag is still being determined. Still, that’s about a third of the market price for a home in the neighborhood.

Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco will open applications for the homes this summer.

“This is going to be cheaper than rent — way cheaper,” Leja said.

The Reyes family — Gennis (left), Ezekiel, Erika, Elijah and Maria — watch a video of Erika’s graduation at home in Daly City.

Photo: Brandon Chew / Brandon Chew / The Chronicle

Home at last

It has been much cheaper for Gennis Reyes, who moved into his family’s Daly City condo two years ago. His and his wife’s Habitat hard hats are part of the decor.

Despite a career as a high-tech financial analyst, he couldn’t afford to buy anything in the Bay Area. He could only qualify for a $200,000 mortgage, the banks told him. And the family of five could barely afford the two-bedroom apartment they were squeezed into at the time.

Now, they are in a condo that they purchased for about $225,000, with a 15-year, no-interest mortgage through Habitat that costs about $1,400 per month, not including the nearly $400 monthly condo fee.

“It’s such a blessing,” Reyes said. “I just can’t tell you how happy we are.”

He looks at current rental rates in the Bay Area, including San Francisco’s average rent of $4,225 or the $1 million price tag on a median family home, and wonders where they’d be without Habitat.

Jill Tucker has covered education in California for 22 years, writing stories that range from issues facing Bay Area school districts to broader national policy debates. Her work has generated changes to state law and spurred political and community action to address local needs.

She is a frequent guest on KQED’s “Newroom" television show and "Forum" radio show. A Bay Area native, Jill earned a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a bachelor’s degree from the UC Santa Barbara. In between, she spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Cape Verde, West Africa.